Sepulcher Mountain Trail

Well, after conditioning and getting used to the altitude with my long hike almost a week ago, I decided I would try to tackle my first mountain. The Sepulcher Mountain Trail is in the northwest corner of the park. Here are some of the details that I gathered from various hiking websites...

Difficulty:  Difficult
Elevation Gain:  3,312 Feet
High Point:  9,652 Feet
Length:  12.1 Miles


Kurt, my assistant manager, and his friend Carolyn joined me on this hike. 

Kurt

Carolyn

As you can see, there was a lot of fresh powder on the ground. It snowed about 3-4 inches the previous night, and we were concerned about the conditions of the roads and the trail itself. After all, it was about a two hour drive from Old Faithful to the trail head. We contacted the park rangers prior to leaving in the morning and they informed us that the roads were fine. They also told us that the trail should still be marked and easily visible. So, we took off at about 7:30am with all our gear, trekking poles, ice axes, and snowshoes.

We finally got started at about 10:30. Here are some pictures that we took along the way. Remember, you can click on the picture and it will come up in a higher resolution.

Where are we again?

The trail went from fairly dry to muddy.

And as we got higher in elevation, the trail went from muddy to snow.

Not only was the trail covered in snow, but we started to get covered in snow ourselves.

Soon the snow became so deep that we were forced to use our snowshoes. The elevation was really starting to hit us here. It became harder to breath, and we had to slow down our pace.

But with all our hard work, we finally started to get some great views. We could tell we were getting close.

Success! It was time to relax, eat lunch, and enjoy the view.

I wish I could've stayed there longer. But the wind was picking up, and the temperature began to drop.

One quick pose and back down we went.

Since the wind moved most of the clouds away, we were able to get some great views going back down.

More great views until we got back to the car. Another successful hike!